


Loving words

by UMsArchive



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bromance to Romance, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 23:06:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9520022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UMsArchive/pseuds/UMsArchive
Summary: SOULMATES AUThe first words your soulmate says to you are tattooed in some part of your body on the youngest one’s 14th birthday. Otabek wakes up on a first day of March with the words “what’s with you, asshole?” tattooed on his shoulder blade.





	

  The first words one and one’s soulmate would share appear on both their bodies at the same time, the very moment the youngest had turned fourteen. By rule, it’s ‘once both of them are fourteen’. By practicability, it’s the very hour and second, day and month of the 14th birthday anniversary of the younger. It was very rare that both of them had the same age. There were famous mediatised cases of soulmates born the very same day, in the very same hospital, even in a close hour interval. But mostly it was messy. It was dividing years and dividing countries. 

 

  Everyone eventually got their marks. But not everyone ended up with their soulmates. Some would get their marks very late. Some would get their mark, but time and time would pass and they never got to hear those words from anyone.  Some would fall in love with different people as they waited. Sure, a soulmate is one’s perfect match. You were supposed to find unequaled calmness and belonging. They said that there is a restlessness in one’s heart that only one’s soulmate can quieten. But it doesn’t mean there aren’t other possible matches for you out there, albeit more risky in the eventuality of being successful.

 

 It was a strong flaw in the system - that of time and space. Otabek has heard of people dying of old age as they waited and wasted, because their soulmate never came their way, and they never ended up in their soulmate’s way. He heard of people getting happily married with children, meeting their much younger soulmate one day in a park or a supermarket, then keeping an amicable relationship with them. He heard of soulmates who had been living and working in the same city for their whole lives, but still never interacted, being part of completely different cycles, going to different stores, different concerts, watching different movies, only to exchange those words one day when they came to pick up their respective children from school. Families have been broken over late meetings of soulmates, that too. 

 

Otabek’s own parents were born 8 years apart. His father had gotten his mark at 22 and he told himself that to go chasing after a 14 years old or even wait for them was ridiculous. He went on with his life, getting involved in other relationships. Six years later, he was engaged. Not with someone he chose - it was an arranged marriage; his parents’ deed, claiming he couldn’t keep on waiting for some unrealistic love, soulmate or not. The girl’s first words when they were introduced were those tattooed on his forearm. Naturally, he thought his parents were trying to play smart. He replied by naming the first three random objects around them. Laughing, she showed him the inside of her palm, where the nonsensical reply he had chosen was written. 

 

When Otabek himself got his mark, he was a few months over 16 and he was training in Vancouver, Canada. He mentioned it as casually as possible on the phone with his parents. He made one up for them, a very generic introduction. His mother thought it was a shame; that was something  he would probably hear from a lot of people. Otabek looked down at his ‘what’s with you, asshole?’ and hoped that was not the case. But it wasn’t of much importance for now. Otabek had left his home country for a reason, and that was what he was going to concentrate on for the time being. One year later, he was finally having some worthy results, managing to snatch a bronze at World, getting the attention he had hoped for, enough to have the possibility of moving back to Almaty. There, however, his parents asked to see his mark. He showed it fleetingly, explaining it was in English, which his family did not understand well, fortunately. He was asked for a renewed promise that, if he were to meet her, he’d tell. Otabek wasn’t sure it was going to be a ‘her’, but he kept that thought for himself. He might not meet them (if he even did) for years anyway. And it might be a ‘her’, still. He didn’t have to worry for now.

  
  


The new season started and Otabek started training again, as well as observing the competition he would have to deal with. Nikiforov was out of race, but there were many other skaters out there to worry about, some older, some new. Yuri Plisetsky was making his senior debut this year. He remembered the boy from his St. Petersburg days - he had made a striking impression on Otabek at the time, through his force and determination. But Otabek never really had the chance to interact with him. Nor did they really compete against each other, although they had shared the Junior division for a year at some point. But back then Otabek hadn’t made the cut for GP and, although he qualified for World’s eventually, he didn’t make it past the short program stage, so there’s that. But it was becoming clear that Yuri was making a powerful debut. Otabek couldn’t have compared with Yuri’s talent and execution when they were younger. He had to try and be the one to make and impression this time.

  
  


The first impression he seemed to have made on Yuri and the new impression Yuri has left him with was perhaps not what he would’ve planned or hoped. 

 

“What’s with you, asshole?” Yuri had growled when their eyes met. And Otabek had stayed there for a moment, struck, but calm. He had known his meeting with his soulmate would be something awkward by default, but he hadn’t thought it would catch him so helpless and clueless. Should he try the same method as his father? Speak nonsense and wait for the outcome? Probably not. There were many people around, watching them, and if he was wrong, this would turn into the most embarrassing moment of his life. He chose the silent treatment, putting on his sunglasses and walking out, only having enough time to see Yuri being taken aback by his passive reaction.

  
  


But Yuri Plisetsky might still be Otabek’s soulmate, although he couldn’t see how he could ever be one to bring ‘quietness’ to Yuri’s volcanic temperament. He still had his first words to share and he was almost afraid to. He took out his phone for a simple google search that confirmed Yuri’s 14th birthday as the day Otabek’s mark appeared. Still what could he do with this information? 

 

He went back to the hotel for a change of clothes and was going down to get the bike he rented for a nice ride to help him clear his mind when he saw Yuri in the lobby and on his way out. He hadn’t seen Otabek. A momentary courage filled his chest. He hurried for his bike, trying to plan a chance meeting out on the streets of Barcelona, and just let out the first words that came to him on the spot and be done with it. 

  
  


But it seemed Otabek wasn’t the only one tracking Yuri. And he was definitely the most subtle of those doing so. The ‘Angels’ were closing in on Yuri, who had just walked into a dead end. Otabek just acted on instinct.

 

“Yuri, get on!” he was saying - a meter away from Yuri - before he had had the chance to think it through. 

 

“It’s  _ you _ ,” Yuri replied, before his own first words registered on Otabek’s mind. Otabek wondered whether he imagined the double meaning behind Yuri’s words. But they had no time - Yuri was now in the Angels’ direct view.

 

“Are you coming or not?” he raised a second helmet in Yuri’s direction as he said so. Yuri hesitated for a moment, but then he was on the bike, and the bike was moving. And Otabek was strangely confused, strangely ecstatic, strangely hesitant to jump to the conclusion he was jumping to, or consider what that conclusion would even mean. People had made sound was easy. You meet them and then- Then what? It seemed like you should just know what to do with it. Otabek didn’t.

 

He brought the bike to a stop. It seemed to have taken Yuri a couple moments to realise they were getting down. He probably thought Otabek was going to take him back to the hotel. Which Otabek should’ve had, probably. But now he had to go along with this. He told Yuri this was just a quiet place he had come across and liked. 

 

Yuri seemed taken aback by that, the brashness from before probably dissolved in the strangeness of the circumstances. Otabek considered the moment. He wondered whether the fact that he brought Yuri to a ‘quiet, nice place’ appeared like he was trying to make this into a grand moment that truthfully Yuri hadn’t been prepared for and neither Otabek. 

 

“Was it that right now?” Otabek still asked, still unsure, still looking at this like something too unreal, too sudden. 

 

Yuri didn’t say anything, - he didn’t even look at him - but he raised his leg up against the railings, revealing the writing on his ankle:  _ Yuri, get on _ . 

 

“There are worse ones,” Otabek countered. But he didn’t show his, because Yuri was still not looking in his direction. He wondered whatever he could even say. Whatever they could say to each other at this point. They had nothing to say to each other, fair and square. None of them have been even actually looking for this, he was sure.

 

But Otabek did have something he had wished to tell to Yuri Plisetsky - not necessarily to his soulmate. He told him what he would’ve wished he would’ve gotten to way before they turned out to be soulmates. He told him about their first meeting. He told him how he had impressed Otabek. He asked him to be friends. Whatever there may be to come, out of all of the things he didn’t yet know how would turn out, he knew he did want this. 

 

“Are we going to become friends or not?” was how he phrased it. Even out of this, Otabek gave Yuri a way out. 

 

Yuri accepted, and they shook hands. 

 

This was nothing like the cliche expectations people had in mind upon meeting their soulmate, possibly. But later, as they chatted in a small cafe in the center of Barcelona, Otabek could feel that subtle calmness and belonging, and the temperament that he had feared in Yuri was somehow clicking in the right direction between the two of them.

  
  
Perhaps, that was truly what it was meant to be. Not jumping into a vortex, but leaning into the comfort of it. The peace. The right alignment.   
  
  
  



End file.
